


overgrowth

by scramjets



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Canon Universe, Dreams, M/M, fairytale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-15 00:52:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19284742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scramjets/pseuds/scramjets
Summary: Who was this stranger with the blond hair and blue eyes? Where did he come from, and what does he want from him? Why does he see him everywhere he goes? Why can't he stop thinking about him, dreaming about him? He doesn't know. But what he does know is that even his bones ache with wanting.





	overgrowth

**Author's Note:**

> For the Star Trek Reverse Big Bang! I had the absolute delight of being paired with [inkfinch](http://inkfinch.tumblr.com), whose artwork inspired the entirety of this fic the second I laid eyes on it. It was a pleasure working with you!! All pieces of art can be found [here](https://inkfinch.tumblr.com/post/185712700483/my-submission-for-this-years). 
> 
> Big, big thank you to Quix for the cheerleading and beta job and for telling me I got this. Thank you so much, bb! And to bee, for all the cheerleading ♥♥

*

*

I’m organising a ball, his mother told him one morning. It’s been three years since she left you, and it’s time that you went out and found someone new.

*

Since then, it was as if he lived in a dream. His life moved around him like he was a rock in a pool, with no power but to watch and let it happen. The mansion was the first to change, with a stream of newly employed townsfolk his mother had hired in her vendetta to chase out the dark.

He knew this mansion. He knew each of its rooms and its tall lofty ceilings. He knew the silent corridors and the dark shadows; he had named them all. But he lived in a dream now and so he moved from room to room where the curtains were thrown open, the windows left wide to let the sunlight blaze through.

Everything hurt his eyes.

*

There were flowers everywhere. The white ones his mother was fond of. Vases upon vases of flowers scattered throughout the mansion. He would learn them by the smell that preceded them. Rich and faintly dizzying. He’d named the shadows of his mansion and now he had no shadows, so he tried to name the scent of the flowers. Vanilla. Cinnamon. Here and there in every corner. Lavender, he tried when he caught it wafting through the evening breeze, but that didn’t fit either. Cherries?

*

The flowers were the backdrop every time he talked to his mother.

I’m not ready, he’d tell her. I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this.

Every time she’d say his name with faint disappointment. She’d turn from what she was in the middle of and cup his face and rub small circles with her thumbs on his cheeks, wiping away the tears that weren’t there and that hadn’t been there for three years.

She’d say his name, and she’d tell him that he had such pretty dark hair and pretty dark eyes, and that even if his mouth was pinched in a frown and he glared more than he smiled, even he felt he had nothing to offer but all these blunt and broken pieces, someone would take it all and love him anyway. There was so much more to him than what his first wife had taken.

I promise, she said. But you have to try.

Here. Take a flower, his mother said, breaking the stem from the arrangement she was fixing, and she tucked the small white bud into the breast pocket of his jacket. Almonds, he thought. With their paper thin skin. The smell settled onto his skin and into his lungs. Or pine nuts, toasted.

*

Time melted. He’d closed his eyes one night and woke the next evening standing on the grand staircase.

His mansion had been stripped down and then opened. Every shadowed corner had a light thrown in it. The floors had been polished until gleaming. He’d forgotten about the gold inlay at the skirting and the patterns molded into the ceiling overhead. He’d forgotten about the forest themed wallpaper in the dining room, the ruby red of the library, and the soft navy of his study.

Music drifted to the top of the grand staircase and he looked down, his hand on the glossy rail as he stared at the men and women dressed in glitter and gold. They danced in tune and in step with the music, heels clicking to the beat against the floor. To his ears it sounded like a heartbeat. His hand tightened where it rested. His breath quickened a pace despite the sudden clenching of his chest.

His suit. It had to be his suit. It was too tight. The vest, the tie, the cumberband, it choked him. Or maybe he was too big now. He had experienced too much since he’d last climbed into this suit. These trousers. This shirt. Sweat broke at the small of his back. Sweat dampened the collar of his shirt. Below him the music changed, became sweeter and the couples came together and danced and he thought, I can’t do this, and, I can’t stand this place, and he choked out, I’ll be back in a moment to whoever listened before turning on his heel and leaving.

*

His fingers found the seam of the servant’s door and he ducked to wedge his way in. Splinters dug into the palms of his gloves as he felt his way through the narrow hallways. He could only hear his breathing here, and it settled slowly in the semi-dark around him until it evened out. Through the walls he thought he heard the strings of the orchestra, barely louder than the sound of his heart in his ears or the shuffle of his shoes on the floor. It smelled earthy in here, wooden, the air clear of the perfume from the ballroom, from the sharp tang of cleaning solution they had used to shine the windows and to sheen the floors.

Then he tumbled out onto the balcony and into the dizzying sweetness of roses, and it was shocking enough that it punched the breath out of him.

*

Overhead the moon hung heavy and white, shining on the gardens that staggered below. Sweat cooled on his exposed skin and he stared at the moon and he stared at the gardens, and he thought to himself that he would escape to the heavens if he could. He would do it in a heartbeat, he would. The first means that showed itself to him, he wouldn’t even think before doing it. Lose himself to the sky and the moon and the stars so he wouldn’t need to think anymore, he wouldn’t need to _think_.

Behind him a door opened and shut. Everything stilled and everything waited for the servant to turn around the corner and leave him, but the silence grew and grew until he turned to address it.

He’d been prepared to ask what the servant was doing, if not loitering. He’d been prepared to request for them to leave. In the end he stared outright at the man who stood there, the way he looked bleached bone-white in the moonlight. He had to squint at him, this stranger, look at him hard because there was something about the way he stood there, a double image, a man superimposed over the same man.

Who are you, he asked, finally.

*

The words came harder than he had intended. Curt. He did not like this man’s dull gold hair, or the strange clothes he wore, or the colour of his skin, his eyes, his mouth. Put together it spelled danger, it spelled disaster, and he could almost see his future in the set of that mouth and in the blue of those eyes and he had enough of disappointing futures.

Around them the night remained still, no hint of a breeze, so the air remained saturated with roses.

What’s your name, the stranger asked.

You should know, he said. You came.

The smile on the stranger’s face rose like the sun, and like the sun, he could only burn in it. He looked away, still burning, and he thought that he should know better and hadn’t he done this before and please please look back before the stranger gave up on him and found someone else to shine on.  

Please don’t give up on me, I’m trying.

Bones, the stranger said. His voice was soft and muted and something heaved in the pit of his stomach. Can you hear me?

Of course I can hear you, he wanted to say. I’m right here, I’m here.

But it was those damn flowers. His mother must have planted a crop out here in the gardens with the roses because the familiar smell of them rose up and smothered everything else out.

Can you hear me?

Yes, he gasped out. Please. _Help me._

*

Bed rest for two weeks and bland food. Instructions not to excite or overstimulate the senses.

His mother had already caught him out of bed once and he told her the advice was from the stone ages. What would he achieve in bed? What could he possibly achieve in bed for two weeks?

Rest, his mother said.

So like a child, he had been sent to bed.

*

He lay swaddled and sweltering in sheets, staring up at the ceiling and thinking of the stranger.

Half awake he thought of him, half asleep he dreamed of him. He saw the stranger’s large mobile hands and his face and the small badge pinned on his breast. He saw himself tracing a blunt finger down the line of his nose and his thumb smudging open the stranger’s mouth, and he felt his body burning under the brightness of his smile.

*

When his mother came to check on him that evening, he asked her who attended the ball.

Everyone, she said, everyone from town and some from the town over.

She fussed over the curtains as she spoke, pushing them open from where they had been left half shut. Before his mother had visited, he had been staring at the motes of dust playing in the shaft of afternoon sunlight coming through. His thoughts had been hazy and indistinct, and he fancied he saw the planets in those specks of dust. An entire universe that moved in accordance to its own laws. Planets circling suns, moons circling planets. Flecks of stars and meteors that were consequently swept away when his mother bustled through. His heart jumped as his stomach dropped, and he scrambled to sit upright.

He was there, he said. He found me.

His mother’s hands paused on the flowers she was rearranging on his bureau, which stood opposite his bed. She stopped and then she continued, humming under her breath as she pulled long stems out of the vase to arrange them a different way. He stared at the back of her head, the way she had pulled her hair into a series of ornate braids. The nape of her neck sat soft and bare.

Finally, his mother spoke. Darling, she said. Darling, what are you talking about?

He wet his lips to speak. At the ball. The night of the ball. I left because it was too much. The dancing and the music and all those people. The suit was suffocating. I couldn’t breathe. I left and you were calling for me because you don’t like it when I use the servant’s hallways and then on the balcony outside, he found me.

There, he said, he found me out there.

Don’t you remember? His mother asked. Don’t you remember, darling? You went down into the ballroom and you asked that lovely Ms Chapel to dance. You danced with her all night, don’t you remember? It was quite the talk.

A river of cold rushed through him. For a moment it felt as if nothing around him existed.

No, he said. No, I--

He found me. On the side balcony, he said, after I left.

His mind retraced the steps of it and every time the steps led him to the balcony where the stranger had found him.

Darling, his mother cooed, all gentle-soft and sweet. But she didn’t turn to face him, kept her attention on the flowers, arranging and rearranging, the white petals bouncing over her shoulder as if they were trying to catch sight of him.

He tried again, asking how he was supposed to court someone if he didn’t know who they who they were or where they came from.

But we do know, she said, endlessly, endlessly patient with him.

He stared. He didn’t know what else to do but to stare, and he stared as she arranged the flowers, as she filled in the silence with her humming a lullaby that stirred the half memory, half sensation of youth. It made his eyes sting and he shuddered out a breath. He wanted to protest, to argue, to prove this man existed but what could he say, what could he show?

He had yellow hair, he tried, hands clenching in the sheets. The stranger. I saw him, he--

Oh my silly, silly boy, his mother said. Her tending to the flowers must have jostled the pollen because it was all he could smell now. The pine nuts and lavender and hibiscus. Sweet and rich.

You need to rest. See? You’re getting worked up now, darling. Here, lie back, that’s it. Close your eyes. Hush, baby, close your eyes. Sleep.

*

He woke from a nap on the lawn. He woke with his body heavy with sleep, his mouth dry, and his skin tacky from heat. Staring up at the blue sheen of the sky, he felt the tickle of grass beneath him, the slight stir of the breeze that carried the scent of lilies upon it. He lay there, an unrealised being on the grass resting on the blurry line of awake and sleep. His thoughts remained shapeless,  and so for once his life was simple and uncomplicated.

A whistling in the distance disturbed the smooth surface of his thoughts. The gardener. A grizzled old man who had been in his mother’s employ for as long as he remembered, and any second now he would trundle around past the topiary he had lovingly shaped. A rearing horse, a rabbit, a fox.

There. The crunch of a wheelbarrow over gravel, and he pushed himself onto his elbows, squinting through the haze of morning sunlight with a greeting on his lips.

The ‘hello’ never eventuated.

It’s you, he said instead. A fraught sound. It’s you. It’s you.

The stranger said to him, _come with me_ , and gestured. And he didn’t shout it or yell it. He had whispered it over the grass and over the rustle of leaves. But the way he said it had the same effect as shouting, and it jolted him to his feet, already running.

He crashed bodily with the stranger. The stranger caught him, then wrapped him up in his arms and stole him.

*

He had grown up knowing the land beyond the perimeter of the estate as forbidden, and his mother had explained why but the reasonings were variable as they were elastic.

Because the land is soggy there, eager to trip you and drag you into the mire. I don’t want you to fall in. I would die to lose you like that.

Because of the fey, the Little People. They catch you with promises and once they have, then you’re tied there forever.

Because the land is being drained. Because thieves live there. Because because because.

All these _becauses_ prickled across his skin the deeper they crept into the fen, but for once he didn’t stop to think about the becauses. He didn’t deign them any thought, didn’t put a voice to them. He let them fade from his mind as the land became difficult to trasverse, and as his hand found the stranger’s. That warm, mobile hand keeping him steady as his feet found all the soft pockets of soil, the tangle of vines; as he tripped over rocks and stumbled into stagnant water. The ankles of his trousers were sodden and ripped. Small roots and branches scratched against his skin.

Around them the smell of the bog water rose. The fetid sweetness of decomposition and gasses that cleared his head and made him dizzy in a different way to his mother’s flowers. He could only imagine her reaction.

But he pressed on, his hand caught in the hand of the stranger.

He’ll drown you in this, and his mind showed him a picture of it -- up to his neck in the mud and the sludge, gasping to breathe as it crept up and over his face.

*

So be it. The thought was steadying despite its savagery. He would let it happen, he _wanted_ to let it happen.

*

Together they stood in the middle of the fen. Here, the trees grew as one tangled, knotted being. Here, the light took a soft green cast, shining through the leaves.

Below their feet, a thick matting of leaf litter with the occasional tender sapling pushing through, aimed for the thin sunlight. He inhaled the smell of growing things and the smell of dying things. He held out his hands, looked up through the shadow of the trees to the sky and marveled.

When he looked back down, the stranger smiled at him.

“Here,” the stranger said, and he followed him because he would, he always would, to a small hidden den tucked beneath a low tree.

Together they crawled in and the stranger arranged it so they were stretched out on their backs on the ground. The den muffled them from sound. It was safe, warm, and his eyelids grew heavy though he had only just woken, earlier.

Beside him the stranger shifted and he felt the weight of his gaze, the sudden intensity of it that made something in him tense.

Each of his senses were attuned to this stranger, so he heard it when he wet his lips, and he heard it when he took in a breath before he said, “Bones.”

The words were pressed up to his ear and the heat of the stranger’s breath made him shudder. He wanted to turn into him and he wanted to push himself away.

*

“Bones,” he said. “Bones. Can you hear me? I need you to wake up, okay? I need you to wake up and get up, and I promise everything will be fine.

“You know I can practically hear you telling me otherwise. I know you’re rolling your eyes and I wish that you were awake right now so I could actually see it instead of imagining it. I know you’re hating this and that’s okay, because I know that you love it too.

“You’re always telling me that you hate space and that once you’ve done your five years that’s it, but guess what? You have three years left, you have three years with me as captain left and as captain consider this command.

“ _Wake up_.”

*

His mother wrung her hands.

It’s dangerous. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand what you’ve done?

They had found him on the edge of the fen and had taken him back to the mansion. He had woken on his bed, sweat-drenched and saying his name over and over.

He had tried to climb out of bed, climb out of the window even, because he was in the wrong place. He was supposed to be in the fen, in the small little den breathing in the same dirt-damp air as the stranger.

Don’t you understand what you’ve done, his mother said. Don’t you see, don’t you see?

 _What_. He demanded. What have I done? What have I done other than to want something? You can’t tell me that you’ve organised a ball and tell me to move on and then tell me no when I’ve decided that he is it, he is the one.

But you haven’t, she said.

He could only stare at her and then he could only look away, unable to look at her any longer and his eyes fell on the vase of flowers on his bureau. A brand new bouquet. The smell was nauseatingly sweet and it sent his stomach roiling, made his mouth water.

His mother pressed her small cold hands to his face and he flinched and closed his eyes.

Darling, you’re so pale. Come look, come see.

He opened his eyes to his reflection in the mirror. He stared at his face and saw the angle of his jaw and the set of his mouth and the colour of his eyes.

See? His mother said.

The hollow of his cheeks and the shadows bracketing his eyes. He’d seen his face countless times in this mirror, in windows, in the gloss of metal.  

His mother stood behind him and he heard the flutter of her breathing and the ruffle of her skirts.

I don’t want you seeing this man.

He stared at his face. His _face_. He knew his face.

I’m going to have someone watch you.

He knew his face, so why was there something wrong about it? What aspect of his jaw or his brow or his eyes was new to him?

You can’t go back there, his mother said, her voice going high and shrill.

Was it defiance changing the shape of it? Tightening his jaw? Or hope, or love? Making him soft at the edges?

You can’t! You can’t!

*

The stranger invaded his dreams and took over his senses.

He dreamed of him and he yearned for him.

He pictured the stranger in his waking moments. He walked into the various rooms of the mansion expecting him there. He learned to expect the stranger seated in the chair at the head of all the tables, secure in his position and casting a glance to him as he entered as if waiting for him to take his place by his elbow.

He pictured this and he waited for annoyance to rise up in him at the sheer amount of fantasised arrogance. It was there, god help him, it was there. But greater was the fond recognition tucked beside his annoyance and that refused to turn into confusion and fear even when confusion and fear lurked beneath the surface.

The meat of his thoughts told him it was wrong.

The only _wrong_ about it was the fact that the stranger wasn’t there.

*

What was his name.

What was his name.

What was his _name_.

*

What was his name?

The questioned burned like a fever in him.

He wrote it down but the letters blurred out in front of his eyes. He rubbed them, drew his fingers away and checked them. He gave the paper to the house maid and made her read the name and she said it back to him, uncertain.

Say it again, he said.

She did.

Say it again, he said.

Madam is calling for me, she said. Then she fled.

He watched her go as he stood in the drawing room. The fire crackled in the grate. It popped and hummed, the sound of it ringing in his ears loud enough to drown out the frantic throbbing of his heart.

The heat in the room was unbearable. His fingers trembled as he loosened his tie, as he undid the top button of his dress shirt. Sweat pooled at the hollow of his throat. His entire body burned.

*

His mother sent word to the outskirts to tighten the security of the town.

Don’t let anyone in without a permit, she said.

Ask every person who steps past their gates their name. Imprison them and kill them and dispose of their bodies in the fen.

For once she forgot about her flowers.

*

Word was they were looking for him, after he had failed to turn up to breakfast that morning.

Every so often he’d catch sight of one of the servants hurrying around the corners and down hallways, breathless and frantic. He stole further into the shadows at the sound of footsteps, ducked into empty rooms when he heard someone speak.

A touch at his hand in one of those empty rooms made him startle and turn, and he thought of his mother and he thought of his doctor and he thought the house maids before he recognised who hid in the shadows with him.

*

They tumbled back into the wildness of the fen. The roots and the branches seemed to work together to stop them, ripping and tearing at skin and clothes. He stumbled and the stranger caught him, and he felt the stranger’s breath against the dampness of his cheek and mouth, and he thought he would kiss him when this was over. Seal his mouth over Jim’s and then that would be the end of it.

Here, the stranger said. Here here, we’re here.

And he knew where the stranger meant even before they broke through into the clearing. Before his eyes landed on the den tucked beneath the tired branches of the low lying tree. Together they scrambled beneath it and curled up, and the stranger’s hand moved to cup his face -- palms soft and calloused and damp and warm.

Distantly was the sound of people chasing them and he closed his eyes as if not seeing them made them not exist. He held his breath as if breathing would spare them from being found.

The stranger’s thumbs rubbed circles on his cheeks, and he heard the quiet puffs of his breath.

Everything stilled.

His chest grew tight as footsteps crashed around them. Darkness crept from the corners of his mind until his body gave to the need for air and he expelled the soured lungful and drew in a shuddering mouthful of fresh breath. With it came the smell of dirt and grass and mould and mildew, leaf matter and the sharpness of fox and vole and dying things and the soft green living things.

His hands found the hem of the stranger’s yellow shirt and held on tight enough that his knuckles ached with it.

*

Neither of them moved in the immediate silence the search party left behind.

Eventually, though, eventually he opened his eyes to the muted darkness of the den and to the stranger looking back at him. The gaze should have made him awkward. Should have made him fumble his words, made him snap something like ‘what is it?’

I looked for you, he said.

He didn’t elaborate, but the stranger must have heard it in his voice anyway, how he’d stormed through the mansion and the grounds, a veritable nightmare, no one knowing who he talked about, no one knowing what he meant. _The man at the ball with the gold hair and blue eyes_.

Something softened in the stranger’s face and all it did was make him press on, let it all out before they lost this chance. He was sick of losing chances.

I can’t bear it here, he said. I can’t bear it in the mansion.

Take me with you.

They think I’m mad.

I think I’m mad.

I want you so badly my bones ache.

I can’t sleep.

Remember when you died and I thought I lost you.

I thought to myself:

I would break my oath for you.

I would break every single word of it to bring you back.

Then he said, I don’t want to live like that anymore. Alone. Without you.

*

The stranger still held his face and his grip tightened enough for a jolt of _something_ \-- dread excitement fear -- to flush through him.

The stranger’s gaze was electrifying in the semi-dark, the blue of his eyes dark and clear and hot in a single instance.

“What’s my name,” he said. "Tell me. I need to hear it. I love you, Bones. We're going to get out of this. I swear. But you have to remember my name."

*

His name, his _name_.

“What’s my name,” the stranger demanded. “Tell me my _name_.”

“Jim,” he gasped out, hands grasping at the ones holding his face. “Jim Kirk, Jim Kirk, _Jim_.”

*

Leonard opened his eyes to Jim’s face over his and for a second the image failed to make sense before it did.

“Jim,” he said. “Jim, am I on the ground. Why am I on the ground?”

Jim laughed at him, but the laugh was too wet to be only laughter. “You passed out.”

“Oh,” Leonard said. “Oh. I passed out.”

He glanced around, finding shadows and finding branches, leaves, and dirt. Grit was stuck beneath his nails. His mouth tasted sour, felt dry and tacky. But Jim was there so it was okay. All of this was okay.

“We’ve got to go,” Jim was saying, and that was fine too, so Leonard took Jim’s offered hand and held it as they crawled out from beneath a small cluster of bushes.

Leonard glanced back at the den-nest as Jim called Scotty to beam them up. The den looked small and soft, carefully hidden from prying eyes. Something about it made Leonard fond. Already he missed it. Jim must have noticed because he squeezed Leonard’s hand then and just as the world dissolved around them, Leonard turned to catch Jim’s smile.

*

Everything in the _after_ happened in haphazard little snatches. Leonard remembered the crush of his stomach and the brightness of the landing pads. He remembered Jim asking if he was okay.

He remembered waking up in the med bay and thinking it all looked wrong. Annoyance had stirred, and he’d braced to haul himself up and demand who had moved everything before fading back out.

Leonard saw faces. He heard snippets of conversation. He felt the jolt of a hypo and the cool flush of its aftermath.

“He’ll be all right?” someone asked, their voice coming through the fog of not-quite-sleep. “He was out for three days, and--”

“Jim,” a woman replied. “Please. He’ll be fine. Here, I’ll get you a chair. Watch him, if it makes you feel better. It’ll save you from tying up the comm lines from the helm or from your quarters.”

*

When Leonard woke up, when he truly woke up, the first thing he saw were flowers. Dread heaved through him before he could stop and understand why. They were just _flowers_. Pretty and white with big curls of yellow-pink pollen stems in the middle. He wanted to touch them.

“Fever flowers,” a voice said at his left. “Or the Pragma Louloúdi. An exceptionally rare flower, which blooms only in the presence of people who are in love.”

The breath rushed out of Leonard and he relaxed against the firm bed. A small curl of disappointment settled in his stomach.

“I appreciate the sentiment, Spock.” Leonard said it with more animosity than he’d intended.

“They’re not from me.”

“Thank god.”

Spock’s expression remained impassive, save for a slight hitch of the eyebrow.

“Are we still at Solidago VI?” Leonard asked, finally.

“We left three hours ago. Despite the initial complications, we were able to secure an agreement to the Federation.”

“The initial complications?”

“Your reaction to their gift,” Spock indicated. “The flowers.”

“The flowers?” Leonard asked.

“I’m not yet certain to the exact circumstances, but your reaction caused a disturbance.”

“Spock,” Leonard said, already sick of this back and forth. “What was my reaction.”

Spock never did sympathy as a general rule, but sometimes he tried. Like now. Still, it fell flat on his face, coming across as more mild distaste. Or maybe it was just that. Mild distaste.

“According to the Captain’s report, you lost consciousness when they were presented to you. Jim had to keep you somewhere safe because the mediation had soured and the planet itself interfered with the transporter. Those flowers are the highest tribute of the planet. They’re very rare. Those who are able to coax a reaction from them are generally kept and regarded the same way.

“They allow instances of shared consciousness,” Spock continued. “The people who cultivate them speak of sharing thoughts and feelings.”

Spock stopped there and apprehension settled into every one of Leonard’s nerves.

“Well,” Leonard said. “Out with it.”

“Occasionally through dreams, doctor.”

Leonard turned from Spock and stared across to the empty bed opposite him. The sheets were neatly folded and the screen on top that displayed vitals served now to reflect a distorted image of him in this bed. He’d never considered himself as a patient in his own med bay, and realising it now sent frustration and embarrassment rippling through him. Leonard sat up, hand bunched in the sheets ready to fling back.

“Nurse Chapel has stressed the importance of rest,” Spock said. “And if I remember correctly, I recall you saying more than once that rest is the best medicine.”

“Not sure if I appreciate you using my own words against me,” Leonard said, waiting for him to step aside.

But when Spock refused to budge, Leonard said, “Fine, fine,” and laid back down.

*

Leonard woke up some time later to the image of Jim slumped across his legs. He glanced down to where Jim’s hand was loosely entwined with his fingers. His first instinct was to shake off the hold before anyone saw them. But he didn’t in the end. Because the urge to remove Jim’s hold remained less than the wanting of the warmth and comfort of how Jim held him, and Leonard thought to himself, _So this is it then_. This was what he wanted.

He stared as Jim slept. He tried not to, but each time he managed to pull his attention away, it would wander back to Jim. Eventually Leonard gave up on trying and let his focus settle there, taking in the slackness of Jim’s mouth and the dark shadows under his eyes and the lightness of his lashes. Each individual aspect of Jim stirred a tenderness in him; the whole image of Jim there made him soft and indulgent. Leonard sighed and rested back against the pillows.

The bed opposite remained unfilled, which could only ever be a good thing. From the left drifted sounds from the doctor’s office. Leonard closed his eyes and inhaled the smell of the med bay, but beneath the familiarity of antiseptic cleaner and the tang of recycled air was the sweetness of flowers.

Instances of shared consciousness, wasn’t that what Spock said? Occasionally through dreams.

Something pressed against the edge of Leonard’s awareness then, and he caught a glimpse of yellow wheat fields, felt the rush of wind against his face, and the coursing of adrenaline through his veins. He shot a hand out and pressed it flat against the dashboard and he said, “Slow down, damnit--”

Leonard scrambled up.

“Jim,” he said. “Goddamnit, wake up.”

“Wha-- Bones--?”

“What were you dreaming about?” Leonard asked.

Jim was too asleep to do more than stare blankly at him and ask, “Dreaming?”

“Your dream,” Leonard said again. “Were you dreaming about Iowa?”

Leonard had seen sunrises rise faster than understanding did on Jim’s face, and he sat with frustrated impatience, waiting until the question clicked and Jim said, “Oh.”

He said, “Yeah. I was.”

For a second it looked as if he was going to continue, but he stopped himself and wet his lips instead. His expression looked uncertain. It looked foreign on Jim’s face.

“How are you feeling?” Jim asked.

Leonard took an inventory. His legs were cramped, his mouth was dry, and he needed to eat food. Real food. Eggs and cornbread and mashed potato and black eyed peas. Sweet tea would go down nice too. Biscuits with gravy. Peach cobbler.

“Fine,” Leonard said. “Hungry maybe. Mostly I was thinkin’ about dreams--”

“Oh--?”

“This strange one I was having about my mother wanting to keep me locked up in some castle--”

“Yeah--?”

“I think you were there,” Leonard said. “Felt like you were there. Looked like you were there.”

“Mm--”

Leonard stared hard at Jim, but he must have taken notes from Spock about restraint. But regardless of whatever notes Jim took, Leonard knew him. He _knew_ Jim. So he saw the worry in the creases of his forehead and at his mouth. He saw the way Jim took him in, how he studied him. That specific softness in his expression… wasn’t new. It had been there a while. But Leonard had never broached it. It had always felt too much.

“Jim, I--” Leonard’s attention fell to their joined hands, and he squeezed Jim’s and he rubbed his thumb against the back of Jim’s hand, felt the rise and dips of his knuckles, tendons, veins. “That wasn’t all just me back there, was it. It was you wanting this--” Leonard lifted their hands. “--too. Right?”

“Right.” The word was gentle even as Jim’s hold tightened, even as he pressed in. Jim’s eyes were so bright. Had they always been that blue?

Leonard wet his lips, glancing back down to their hands, the different shade of their skin entwined together. God, he hadn’t felt this nervous since--

“We can talk about it,” Jim said. “I want to talk about it. Here, Bones, look.”

Jim took back his hand and Leonard watched as Jim retrieved something from his uniform pocket. He held them up, smiling.

Leonard stared, waiting for more of an explanation and when none was forthcoming he asked, “Are those band aids?”

“Mm. A little bit fiddly, aren’t they? Move over please. I think Chapel missed a spot. There’s a scratch on your cheek there.”

The bed dipped where Jim sat and Leonard shuffled over the best he could but even then, they were wedged together tightly in the small space. He watched Jim’s face as he unpeeled the small plaster, heart beating with excitement and nerves. Jim’s hands trembled just a little.

“I think I’m ready,” Jim said, holding up the bandage to stick on. It was difficult not to smile in response to his expression. “What about you? Ready?”

“Ready,” Leonard said. “I’m ready.”

 


End file.
